MS Dhoni on your crisps

One of the first things you notice as a foreigner in India is how readily complete strangers are willing to strike up probing conversations with you. When I explain I’m following England’s cricket tour they often laugh before explaining that their country is “cricket crazy” - as if they are somehow detached from it all. This impartiality usually passes within minutes and they fall to musing about the skiddy medium pace they bowled as a teenager, or the intricacies of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar’s action. Unwittingly they prove their own point.

On television there are several channels devoted to cricket: ICL, IPL repeats, highlights of old Indian ODI’s - on one I found a repeat of the Sussex-Lancashire C&G trophy final from a couple of years ago. Advert breaks bring you Sachin Tendulkar promoting the Royal Bank of Scotland and Yuvraj Singh advertising Pepsi. If you fancy a snack, Mahendra Singh Dhoni appears on the front of your packet of crisps.

The money flowing through the Indian game makes much more sense when you are here. The advertisements and the endorsements are the physical representations of the billion dollar television deals which are made by companies desperate to show live International matches. For a cricket follower it is a strange experience – I’m both ecstatic at the amount of cricket I can consume, and uneasy at how entwined with money and markets it has become.

As for England and their practice matches – few people have been talking about them. Pietersen and his colleagues have been footnotes in the English-language papers as Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting have dominated the front, back and opinion pages. India’s victory over Australia was felt viscerally by many I’ve spoken to: “We hate the Aussies”, a man from Mumbai told me, “we even danced in the streets when England won the Ashes”.

This focus away from the upcoming one-day matches might give England an advantage, especially with Tendulkar rested and Ishant Sharma injured for the beginning of the series. This being said, modern cricketers should be accustomed to the seamless transition between different tours and contrasting forms of the game. England will have to start well against a country riding on the crest of a wave.

SRT and his records

As Sachin Tendulkar glided the first ball after tea down to third man in Mohali today, the euphonious sound of his bat hitting the ball was drowned out by momentous roar from the crowd. Tendulkar, who made his debut as a mere 16-year-old child against Pakistan in 1989, is now the leading run-scorer in the history of the game. The shot and the record entirely justified the sobriquet: “little master”.

I was younger than Tendulkar was on his debut when I first saw him play. South Africa were hosting India at the Wanderers in a One Day International in 2001 and my family’s recent acquisition of Sky Sports meant a new world of international cricket was now open to me. I spent more than a week eagerly anticipating it.

On the morning of the match I slumped in front of my food at breakfast with my head resting on the table. I recall making guttural sounds as mother came to fuss over me to ask what was wrong. I told her I had stomach-ache and could not go to school. My acting skills were superlative. I was soon laid on the sofa with a heavy blanket over me, and the yellow bucket by my side that always seemed to accompany illness in the family.

Tendulkar had always evoked something sublime and mysterious in my young mind. I had heard his name discussed endlessly in newspapers and on television. I knew of his batting feats and how he always delivered for India. Some said he was the greatest player of his generation. But I had never seen him play. I did not even know what he looked like. Instead of constructing an image of him in my head, my imagination was rife with impossible shots and huge scores.

We all know the line that when Tendulkar walks out to the middle he carries the hopes of a billion people on his shoulders. “Cricket is my religion and Tendulkar is my God” his fans cry. In the Bulling that day he also had a 14-year-old English boy for company as well.

I actually remember little about the game itself – the expectation was everything. Tendulkar and Ganguly opened for India and both scored hundreds. The only shots I recall are Ganguly marauding down the wicket to dispatch innumerable balls over long-on for six. I also remember Tendulkar got out the ball after his century, while I was still high on adrenaline. It seemed as if he had scored those runs just for me. This would have felt the same whether I was 14 or 41. I had invested so much expectation into this innings that when he delivered it was almost personal. It didn’t even matter that India went on to lose the match: Tendulkar was a hero. This is my insight into the Indian cricket fans Tendulkar-cult.

Much can be made of Tendulkar the phenomena. The Marxist Mike Marquese has argued the Tendulkar cult in India is about more than cricket: “unwittingly and unwillingly, he has found himself at the epicenter of a rapidly evolving popular culture shaped by the intertwined growth of a consumerist middle class and an increasingly aggressive form of national identity.”

Cricket is certainly a central articulation of Indian identity, but this analysis is so far removed from his sublime stroke-play that it completely bypasses why Tendulkar is worthy of celebration in the first place. Tendulkar is not a historical construct: he is a glorious batsman.

When you watch Tendulkar bat you invest an expectation in his performance like no other. When the ball is delivered to him your knee bends and your foot inches forward in anticipation of classical drive or a stinging cut-shot. If he edges a ball through the slips, your heart-races as if it is you yourself that has just received a let-off.

The writer Soumya Bhattacharya captures the essence of the Tendulkar-cult. He says he was the first hero he ever had who was younger than he was. Hero’s are supposed to die with your youth, but Tendulkar’s batting has the power to make you feel young again. Record breaking feats aside: this is his marker of greatness.

This article can also be found at The Corridor (a cricket blog)

Statistics can lie

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” alleged former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

I’m not sure if Disraeli was a cricketer: perhaps this was said in response to a particularly bad season in which his batting average belied the way he was striking the ball in the nets? One thing is sure: statistics hold a powerful grip over the mind of the cricketer and the cricket fan. You don’t hear Manchester United fans discussing Cristiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney’s respective goals-to-shots ratio. Be it bowling averages or strike rates, we are obsessed, and this obsession often clouds our judgement of a player.

Ricky Ponting, Australia’s captain, began the current series under a cloud. Prior to the first Test he had scored a grand total of 172 runs in eight matches against India in India, at a dismal average of just 12.3. Much was made of this statistic in the pre-match posturing between the sides, and Ponting himself was obviously acutely aware of his past failings.

“Ponting’s poor record is an advantage for us,” Zaheer Khan told an Indian news channel. “This could be his last series as a captain, [and] if you see his statements in the press you can make out he is under pressure.”

As proved by his 123, past records can often count for little on the day. Commentators could have spent more time examining his play in the nets or the state of the pitch when making pre-match predictions. All but one of Ponting’s previous matches in India came before 2001 – back when he had only scored 2500 Test runs, and was averaging 43. He has changed markedly as a player since then. He has scored 7500 further runs, made a staggering 28 hundreds and raised his average to a lofty 58. His average against India in Australia is over 70.

Like a batsman who just received a ball that kicked-up off a good length and must play the next ball entirely on its merits - we must take a step back before making our judgments on a player before a series. Ponting’s record tells a story - it shows us his early weakness against spin, and the grip Harbhajan has held over him. It didn’t, however, tell us how this series was going to pan out. Ponting is an exceptional batsman and his innings yesterday wasn’t just redemption - it was a return to his brilliant status quo (if more tempered and watchful than usual).

Another player whose pre-series statistics masked his undoubted talents was Ishant Sharma. Before this match he had taken 23 wickets at an average of 36 from nine matches (the standard for a good fast bowler being under 30). There is no footnote next to these figures saying: “NB: bowled a great spell against Ponting at Perth a year ago - very good prospect”. If his career had ended before this match, a casual observer of Wisden in 20 or 30 years time would have assumed he was dropped for indifferent form. His four-wicket haul showed true class as he bowled beautifully on a slow surface.

Statistics are an indelible part of the game - they are recorded for posterity and will be your marker when you are gone. But they are only numbers. The game isn’t just about runs and wickets - it’s about people, places and stories. Is Michael Hussey the greatest player since Bradman? No he is not, but his average could make you think so. The two team’s final batting and bowling stats for this series will tell us who played consistently – but they might mask a crucial five not out by a tail-ender that won a pivotal test match. Put simply: they say the stats don’t lie, but sometimes they do.

This article can also be found at The Corridor (a cricket blog)

Forget the scoreline

India versus Australia can no longer be spoken of as a burgeoning rivalry: the history, the animosities, the personalities involved – this is one of the great cricketing contests of modern times.

Forget balanced bowling attacks, or whether to pick White or Krejza. Forget the swansong of the old guard. These are only topical subtexts flowing alongside a greater narrative: a story that can be traced through Sachin Tendulkar’s mastering of Shane Warne, VVS Laxman’s 281 and Australia’s eventual storming of Nagpur back in 2004.

Each new chapter has proved to be as compelling as the last. This is a narrative of such glorious ebb and flow that every cricket fan will be glued to his television or his computer over the coming weeks to be a part of the ensuing drama. India and Australia have yet to disappoint us in these duels.

As George Orwell famously wrote in 1945: sport, as we know it, “is war minus the shooting”. When England meet Germany or India play Pakistan there is so much more to the game than is being played out on the pitch. Sport bears the incredible burden of history. This is what makes such games and series so fascinating to the outsider, and so important to the partisan fan.

India and Australia may not have faced each other down the barrel of a gun, but their recent cricketing battles – both on and off the pitch – mean history is as overt and consequential in this series as in any other between rival nations. When the coin is finally tossed in Bangalore tomorrow the collective intake of breath across the sub-continent will be powerful enough to suck up the Bay of Bengal. Such feelings are the foundations stones upon which this series stands, and which makes it so iconic.

As to the cricket itself, I think India’s chances are over-rated and that Australia will surprise those who describe their bowling attack as weak and their batting as undercooked.

Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Shane Watson all have the control needed for success in India, and it isn’t often that Australia’s batsman fail to perform. Simon Katich, for one, has been Bradman-esque in state cricket for the last year or so. Their spinners look poor, but it was their pace attack that won the series in 2004. I also remember the last time the Aussies chances were played down. They replied to the tune of 5-0.

For India, barring Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, their batsmen have been poor in recent times. Lee’s pace, like Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel’s for South Africa recently, will unsettle them. Even if MS Dhoni, for example, were to score a brilliant hundred tomorrow, the focus will still be on Rahul Dravid, Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to prove their doubters wrong. This will surely eat away at the team.

I predict a victory for Australia, but this is a series which is about so much more than the eventual scoreline.


This article can also be found at The Corridor (a cricket blog)